BILLERICA, MASS. - Start-up WebDialogs this week unveils a new hosted application service for customer relationship management (CRM) that lets businesses on the Web interact with their customers via voice, chat or Web collaboration.
The hosted service, WebInteract 2.0, lets businesses add a "contact" button to their e-commerce sites so that online visitors can request live voice conversation directly on the Web. This feature works if the visitor has a multimedia PC with speakers; if not, customer-service representatives can initiate voice callback if the Web visitor has a phone line available.
WebInteract 2.0 also improves the Web collaboration capability that's part of the service offering, according to company CEO Lou Guerca.
"Before, the Web collaboration was rather rudimentary, with the service rep only being able to do a screen capture of what the online visitor was seeing," Guerca said. The improved service gives customer-service reps the ability to collaborate with Web visitors, see what they see, and guide them to specific Web pages, if needed, by taking control of their browser.
Voice-over-IP CRM is still in its infancy, though interest is growing among vendors. The WebDialogs service uses Java-based voice-over-IP client software, which a Web visitor automatically downloads after clicking on the Web site's "contact" button to ask for a service rep; the download takes just seconds. Guerca says WebDialogs is partnering to share its technology with another CRM vendor, FaceTime Communications, known for its support of the AOL-based "instant messaging" feature for CRM.
The WebDialogs service starts at $500 per month.
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